Another Step in Pitched-Blackness
by Clementive
Summary: [Road Trip!AU]. After her fiancé leaves her before they could reach the altar, Ino is determined to win his heart back even if it means to force a total stranger to help her along with her plan. Except, she didn't count on this stranger to have an agenda of his own when it comes to love. Even less: a stolen car and a search warrant issued against him. NaruIno.


_**Summary: Modern!AU. After her fiancé leaves her before they could reach the altar, Ino is determined to win his heart back even if it means to force a total stranger to help her along with her plan. Except, she didn't count on this stranger to have an agenda of his own when it comes to love. Even less: a stolen car and search warrant issued against him. NaruIno.**_

 _ **Pairings: NaruIno (main), SasuSaku (mentioned). There may be mentions of others depending on my mood.**_

 _ **This is probably 1/2 impulsive people seeking revenge because their hearts have been broken and 1/2 a dark mess meant to be humorous. Okay, it's bitter before it gets funny, but there's a road trip thrown in there too, so there's always that. ;) Originally, this was supposed to be a one-shot request, but my mind wandered and I have no regrets.** _

-X-

 **Watch Your Step**

 _ **by Clementive**_

 _This is for Maenu._

-X-

Ino Yamanaka didn't hurry, his last words a mere echo around her wedding finger. Around her throat. Around her beating heart. They strangled slowly, killed her, revived her, until the lines between now and then blurred and there was nothing but her halting hushed breath in the empty hotel room.

She needed to go slow. She needed to wait. For him. For their friends. For anyone who could still show up.

Shikamaru had always called her reckless, so she made a point to pause despite her off-beat disjointed humming. She controlled the tremors in her body, willing them to quieten. Calm and slow. Waiting. Shikamaru had told her too many times, she couldn't be calm. Too troublesome. Too impulsive. Too loud. Now, she would be good, she vowed to herself. It wasn't too late, she would wait for the storm to pass. For him to come back and pick up the pieces of his last words and rewind until there was nothing between them once more; skin against skin and lips against lips.

Ino made sure there was not the slightest twitch in her wrist when she lay down her wedding dress on the bed. When she stepped in it, the cheap beige carpet moulding the ball of her feet. When the curtains danced in the setting sun's glow and the bells of the church rang. The silk rustled softly in the faint gush of wind. She reached for her veil.

She had always loved the pretence behind dressing up even as a child. She could be anyone she wanted across history or in the future. In loud screeching and stretches of fabric, she could shield herself and reveal herself. It wasn't just her skin she covered or bared to the world, it was her soul. She allowed herself to spin briefly on her heels in front of the mirror. She was playing a ghost, she told herself, the maiden died before her wedding night. She had been naughty, talked too loud and her soon-to-be husband fired a bullet of words and farewells through her heart. Now she waited for a second chance. Every story needed a happy ending.

Ino sat at her dressing table.

His last words came back to her more rapidly now. Hushed and bent, severing, haunting her humming. She carefully softened her features with layers of makeup until the hard lines of sorrow disappeared, her face sunken and white, standing out of the pitched-blackness.

The ring of the bells echoed in the distance and when she blinked, her reflection quivered in gold and red flecks of the sun, the curtains still half-opened behind her.

No one was coming.

His words were a roar now, cutting deeper, faster. She bent down, nauseous and broken, burying her fists in her mouth and stomach. She needed to be silent and calm. Slow. She tried to hold it all in. Her nails dug in her stomach, her teeth sank in her fist. She wrinkled her dress. She tried. So hard. Again and again. If only she could keep silent. She wanted it to slip out of her in droplets of darkness, but it growled inside of her, insatiable, angry and urgent.

 _"I can't marry you, Ino."_

She roared back, suddenly, and to her ears, she was no ghost; ghosts haunted in solemn silence. No, she was just a broken animal abandoned on her wedding day.

 _"I'm sorry."_

She kept roaring. There was no droplets of blackness, but an incessant gushing wind that couldn't be silenced. There was no wedding band around her finger anymore. No need to wait.

She couldn't help but think if only she hadn't been herself all those years, she would have had her happy ending.

-X-

Naruto Uzumaki believed everything could change. Hatred could turn to love, if he was patient, if he worked hard and gave and gave until his chest was hollow with a missing heart he had ripped out in an offering. He believed people could change, events could shape them in and out of suits, pushed them forward and stopped them at the last moment.

Now, the world was tilted, atrocious and loud, filled with her screams and destroyed by their lies.

Naruto didn't believe the window of the living room would explode when his car jumped onto the sidewalk. He didn't believe his foot would keep pressing down the pedal, his hands whitening around his wheel.

And Sakura. And Sasuke. And the house screeched and squeaked in the angry silence that briefly followed, gaping open where his car had made an impact.

Then, everything exploded.

The honk, the sirens blared in his ears, from far away, but Naruto kept staring at ahead, fighting the air bag. He thought it was the sound of his heart breaking, or the police or the ambulance. Or the world righting his course and shifting until it could be right again. Sakura and him. Not Sakura and his best-friend.

But his body moved with the motion, growing louder, bolder and he threw the door of his car open. His ears rang. His motor fumed. Naruto finally managed to slide past the air bag.

"Naruto..."

There was a flash of pink, a contained motion of white and black, but he ignored them walking towards Sasuke's car. Bare feet smacked onto the sidewalk and he thought it was twisted that she told him to wait for her, years ago, and now she was running toward him, not in want but in horror.

The house was in ruins, the sirens still blared around him and the neighbours were peeking out of their windows, their mouths as twisted as Sakura's.

"Please, Naruto!"

Numbly, he looked back at Sasuke's hardening face, his hand frozen in his hair as if he was hesitating being pulling or combing it back. It was easier to avoid Sakura's twisted lips, her fingers tearing at one another. She looked more petrified than sad. He wished he could tell Sasuke that things change, that he would take something of his too someday. And then, they would be even.

Instead, he smirked wolfishly, because in his head he was screaming and Sakura was not a thing for him to trade.

"I'm going to enjoy your ride, bastard."

She simply didn't choose him. Yet.

-X-

The bells above the door rang and Naruto glanced up from the racks of sunglasses, surveilling who had entered the small grocery store. The blond woman went for the magazine stack, half her face hidden behind cat eye sun glasses. He pouted, spinning on his heels. In movies, the chase was fast and there was a plan. Naruto hadn't thought beyond slipping behind Sasuke's wheel when he left Sakura and him behind.

Someone was supposed to stop him or chase him down.

And the plan. There was supposed to be a plan.

Instead, his foot had remained on the gas pedal and he had reached a small town where the air was murky with the scent of sand and gas. His phone was still in his car and he had reloaded his gas pint without a destination in mind.

He didn't know how far would be far enough for him.

He didn't know if he ever wanted to go back.

Groaning, Naruto pushed back the sunglasses into place and turned towards the food alley instead. He grabbed a bag of chips and hesitated before instant ramen cups. He shook his head. Sakura used to bring two cups to his office when Sasuke was still missing. He wondered what he missed in her quiet way to hold herself as she grew in confidence. The absence of hints, the long wait, her downcast eyes and then her levelled ones... Did it mean he never had a chance? When Sasuke was missing and he stayed and looked after her and believed and believed that things could and would change, was everything lost and doomed from the start?

Did Sakura know, then, when she pled him to stay and be patient that it was all futile? That her heart would never change in its yearning?

Behind him, the bell chimed again, but he didn't bother to look back this time.

His jaw twitched as he stared hard at the water bottles. Mechanically, he finally reached a bottle and then carried everything back to the front.

"I'll take a map of the area with that."

The man behind the counter raised a brow, his arms firmly crossed over his chest. His pale eyes fixed on his face, Naruto laughed uneasily. He rubbed at his neck to avoid the tattoo and the piercing eyes.

"And forty bucks worth of gas, sorry, man. It slipped my mind. You need to believe that."

"Hn. 68 bucks."

Naruto glanced behind his shoulder after tugging his wallet out of his pockets. The silence was almost eery in the small shop. A tall woman with the same green piercing eyes was restocking some merchandise in the back alleys. A shiver ran down his spine. He tried to remember how many people he had seen in the small town. His wallet stuck to his sweaty palms and when he turned back towards the cashier, his things were already packed.

He forced a smile.

"Keep the change, man."

The scorching sun blinded him when he stepped outside. His nervous fingers twitched around his keys. He kept glancing back until he reached Sasuke's black car. He slipped inside with haste. Naruto shook his head to clear his head, his fingers rubbing his forehead.

He needed a night of sleep. And a plan.

He sighed then froze. There was a movement on the passenger seat, then a click and a slight pressure on his ribcage.

"Hello," the blonde woman hissed, her pale eyes glowing as they met his widened ones.

She dug the barrel of her gun more deeply into his stomach. Inwardly, she trembled, hesitant and terribly afraid. Inwardly, she pled him: _"Don't resist. Make room for me, I have nowhere else to go."_

"Drive or I'll shoot".

-X-

 _ **I didn't know NaruIno could make me this satisfied but it has happened.**_

 _ **Please take the time to let me know what you've thought! Thank you! :)**_


End file.
